The risk of jet fuel shortages in Europe grows each day tankers remain stuck in the Strait of Hormuz, although it isn’t clear when exactly supplies will run out and what that will mean for travellers.
As a fragile ceasefire between Iran the US remains in place, it was still unclear on Friday how much maritime traffic was making its way through the Straight of Hormuz.
Whilst Iran said it would open the straight, the US President Donald Trump said the American naval blockade would continue.
Experts say the risk of jet fuel shortages caused by the blockage of maritime traffic in the Middle East was greatest in Asia, and to a lesser extent Europe, as they both rely on oil from the Gulf and its refineries for their supplies.
In recent weeks airlines have cancelled flights to cut costs as fuel bills explode and wary passengers think twice about travel plans, a situation that could persist even if a fragile truce holds in the Middle East.
With European travellers concerned about geopolitics and conflict in the Middle East, many wonder whether it will cause cancellations for the summer season.
READ ALSO: Europe could face jet fuel supply issues ‘in near future’
What do the experts say?
Experts are of the opinion that there could be summer cancellations starting within weeks unless stability returns to the Middle East and maritime traffic returns to normal.
“The situation can, within the next three, four weeks, become systemic,” Rystad Energy economist Claudio Galimberti said on US financial news channel CNBC on Tuesday about jet fuel shortages.
“So you could have severe cuts of flights in Europe, starting as early in May and June,” he warned.
Galimberti said flights had already been cancelled due to fuel shortages, but on the same day the European Commission said there was no lack of fuel as yet.
“There is no evidence for fuel shortages in the European Union at present, but supply issues could occur in the near future in particular for jet fuel,” said spokeswoman Anna-Kaisa Itkonen.
“That remains our primary concern,” she told reporters.
The airports lobby ACI Europe has warned the commission of a risk of “systemic” jet fuel shortages if maritime traffic is not restored in the Strait of Hormuz by the end of April.
Last week the Airports Council International Europe wrote to the European Commission saying shortages of jet fuel could begin in three weeks, at the beginning of May, if tankers don’t begin sailing through the Strait of Hormuz before then.
The head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Fatih Birol, has also warned that Europe could face shortages of jet fuel “maybe beginning of May”.
In its latest monthly report on the oil market, released on Tuesday, the IEA advanced a later date.
“If the global jet fuel market tightens further and European markets are unable to secure more than 50 percent of their lost Middle East volumes, then stocks will hit the crucial 23-day level in June,” it warned.
Is it the same across Europe?
No, the situation also varies considerably across the continent.
Austria, Bulgaria and Poland have comfortable stocks. For Britain, Iceland and the Netherlands it is the opposite. France is somewhere in the middle.
So the impact won’t be the same for all airports and airlines.
“Smaller, inland located, airports will be in a weaker position than the main hubs,” ING Bank economist Rico Luman told AFP.
“It won’t be a matter of full halt, but part cancellation at some airlines and airports,” he added.
Airlines for Europe (A4E), a trade association that includes Air France-KLM, Lufthansa and Ryanair, has been urging the European Union to begin providing real time information on jet fuel stocks at airports.
The data would have to come from fuel suppliers, who are not enthusiastic about turning over sensitive commercial data to their major clients.
TotalEnergies has warned that if oil supplies from the Gulf remain blocked in June it won’t be able to supply all of its customers.
“If this war and this blockade last more than three months, we’ll begin to face some serious supply issues in some products like jet fuel,” the company’s chief executive Patrick Pouyanne said on Monday.
Airlines for Europe (A4E) has also suggested that the European Commission exceptionally authorise the import of US jet fuel, which is produced to a slightly different standard than in the rest of the world.
READ ALSO: What are your rights in Europe if your flight is delayed or cancelled?
Are some airlines already cutting flights?
Some European airlines are already taking precautions.
Lufthansa said Thursday that it was accelerating savings plans by closing a regional subsidiary as the German aviation giant struggles with surging fuel costs due to the Iran war and a wave of labour strikes.
The group also said it would reduce capacity on long- and short-haul routes after the US-Israeli conflict against Iran sent global energy prices soaring.
As well as the hit from the war, Europe’s biggest aviation group has had to contend with a wave of strikes by staff in recent months — this week alone, cabin crews and pilots are staging back-to-back walkouts for five straight days.
The group also announced in a statement that its small CityLine carrier, which mainly operates short-haul flights from destinations in Europe to Frankfurt and Munich, would stop operating on Saturday.
Hungarian low-cost airline Wizz Air has already encountered some jet fuel shortages at three airports in Italy, its chief executive said Friday, following warnings about supplies because of the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz.
“We had problems because of a shortage of jet fuel in three Italian airports — Venice, Brindisi and Catania,” Wizz Air chief Jozsef Varadi told Italian business daily Il Sole 24 Ore.
“It was all resolved within a day and in some cases within hours, without having to cancel flights.”
Several Italian airports had signalled limitations on jet fuel supplies earlier this month.
READ ALSO: Wizz Air reports problems with jet fuel supply in Italy
With reporting from Conor Faulkner.
